Getting Approved on eBay Affiliate Network

I am a little embarrassed that I have never utilised the power of the eBay affiliate network up until now, especially as I am an experienced SEO geek. A friend/colleague recently introduced me to it and it’s earning potentials so I thought yep that sounds good I will give that a try. He had been doing pretty well with regular monthly revenues streaming in from the eBay affiliate network.

eBay Affiliate Network Application Process

Applying is pretty straight forward, add your details, website, nature of business etc and submit and then wait for a response to tell you whether you have been accepted or not.

My example site: www.paistecymbals.co.uk

As a drummer I love Paiste Cymbals and wanted to use the power of the eBay Affiliate Network to promote Paiste cymbals, pretty clean site I knocked up in about 2 hours. It’s built in WordPress which is a favourite of mine and I got it indexed in 2 hours from the domain going live – “job’s a gud un” I thought.

Wasn’t spammy, had relevant content on there, at least 10 articles when I posted it (which has changed now)

I also installed statcounter so I could check what eBay looked at when they came to check out my site.

Within 24 hours eBay India had been on and looked at 4 pages for a total of 1 minute 50 seconds.

I was surprised when I received the following email:

Thank you for applying to the eBay Partner Network. We regret to inform you that we cannot accept your application at this time.

Like many other affiliate programs, eBay Partner Network has a thorough application vetting process to ensure a good fit between a potential affiliate and the goals of the network. There are a number of reasons why your eBay Partner Network application may have been declined. Some of these include:

You are not in compliance with the eBay Partner Network Agreement and/or Code of Conduct.

The stated website that you plan to promote us from is non-functioning or inaccessible

The quality of your stated website is not in line with our network standards

The information you submitted in your application (contact information and your description of how you plan to promote eBay Partner Network) is incomplete or unclear

Your business model or stated website does not appear to be one that would attract eBay buyers (the eBay Partner Network does not currently provide commissions for bringing eBay sellers or listings to the site)

If you feel that your application deserves a re-review, please provide any additional information that you would like us to reconsider. It is not necessary to submit an additional application with a different email address. Requests that contain no new information about your promotion methods will be reconsidered.

Regards,

The eBay Partner Network Team

I quickly went over the pages that eBay had visited and all of their terms and changed anything that I thought could be affecting my eBay Affiliate account approval and re-submitted.

A little over 50 minutes later I got this response:

Thank you for applying to the eBay Partner Network.

We have re-evaluated your application. We regret to inform you that eBay Partner Network cannot accept your application at this time.

Our application review process is updated on an as needed basis and may differ among programs. For security reasons, we do not reveal our exact criteria for accepting affiliates into each program.

Based on the details you have provided, we did not find any substantial changes to your application; therefore, you cannot be accepted at this time.

If in the future, you have any substantial changes to your application, please use this link to provide additional information that you would like our Customer Support Team to reconsider. It is not necessary to submit an additional application with a different email address. Requests that contain new information about your promotion methods will be reconsidered.

Regards,

The eBay Partner Network Team

I checked the pages visited again and this time they only looked at the home page for a total of 1 second or less.

“Let’s Just Be Friends…..”

A bit gutted that I had failed in getting approved to the eBay Affiliate Network I sat down and had a beer (it was 9pm by this point and had fully deserved it) It felt like when you like a girl and she doesn’t like you back and says ‘Let’s just be friends’

Getting Accepted on the eBay Affiliate Partner Network

So whilst having a beer I called my friend and told him my story and the next piece of advice he gave me was some of the best logic i’ve had in ages and literally saved the day.

He said: “You need to give them a site that looks informative and not just built to sell. I think eBay prefer blogs/sites that appear to be full of information and established.”

3rd time’s the charm!

So with that in mind I applied again but with another domain I created this about a year ago spent 4 hours on it to create free on blog.wordpress.com and forwarded the domain. So I knew i’d better host it myself and get all the pages, posts and tags indexed before I applied again to the eBay affiliate network.

12 hours later, new site, new server and eBay called me to say I would have confirmation on my account in the next 5-7 days.

They didn’t do this before which I found odd so I asked the support agent at eBay, ‘Have I been accepted?’

She said: ‘I cannot give you that information but you should be fine.’

So fingers crossed I will be on my way to running a successful eBay affiliate campaign in the next few weeks.

I will let you know if and when I get approved and how the sites are doing for your own interest and hopefully it will help you to get accepted with the eBay affiliate network.

Tips on Getting Accepted to the eBay affiliate network

Once you’re accepted you can add any site you want so bare that in mind before you choose a site to apply.

Apply with your most informative site

Domain age appears to have a factor

Avoid adding any content that appears to sell

Have a beer – it helps!

If you have any questions on how to be accepted to the eBay Affiliate Network please feel free to leave a response and we will get back to you.